The present disclosure relates to a vessel assembly and more particularly to a mold-less curing method of manufacturing the vessel assembly.
Pressure vessels may serve as storage media (e.g., gas) for a wide variety of consumer, commercial, and industrial processes. In order to store sufficient mass of gas for any operation within a given volume, the gas is stored at high pressure. Traditionally, pressure vessels have a typical spherical or cylindrical design that evenly distributes stress in the containment perimeter. Unfortunately, such tanks do not use allocated space efficiently. For example, a spherical vessel fills a cubic space with about fifty-two percent efficiency, and a cylindrical vessel fills a rectangular volume with approximately seventy percent efficiency. More recent improvements in pressure vessels that generally conform to a rectangular volume may fill the space with about ninety percent efficiency relative to a true rectangular volume.
The designs of non-spherical/cylindrical pressure vessels to support high internal pressure are complex, including variable-curvature external surfaces and internal structure to transfer mechanical loads. The large size of a high conformable vessel and the complicated shapes may lead to manufacturing challenges. In addition, manufacturing needs to consistently provide reliable, high-volume, lightweight and low-cost constructions with high strength mechanical properties.